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A screen showing the typical gameplay of Gauntlet. The Warrior is in the lower left with several Ghosts approaching him. Two treasure chests are also visible. On the right, it is indicated that the Valkyrie, Wizard and Elf have not joined the game

The players, up to four at once in the arcade version, select among four playable fantasy-based characters: The Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, or Elf. Each character has his or her own unique strength and weaknesses. For example, the Warrior is strongest in hand-to-hand combat, the Wizard has the most powerful magic, the Valkyrie has the best armor and the Elf is the fastest in movement.[2]

Upon selecting a playable character, the gameplay is set within a series of top-down, third-person perspective mazes where the object is to find and touch the designated exit in every level. An assortment of special items can be located in each level that increase player's character's health, unlock doors, gain more points and magical potions that can destroy all of the enemies on screen.[6]

The enemies are an assortment of fantasy-based monsters, including ghosts, grunts, demons, lobbers, sorcerers and thieves. Each enters the level through specific generators, which can be destroyed. While there are no bosses in the game, the most dangerous enemy is "Death", who can not only drain a character's health, but is difficult to destroy.[6]

As the game progresses, higher levels of skill are needed to reach the exit, with success often depending on the willingness of the players to cooperate by sharing food and luring monsters into places where they can be engaged and slaughtered more conveniently.[6] While contact with enemies reduces the player's health, health also slowly drains on its own, thus creating a time limit. When a character's health reaches zero, that character dies. The character can be revived in place with full health by spending a game credit (i.e. inserting a coin) within a certain short time window after it died. This allows even the least proficient players to keep playing indefinitely, if they are willing to keep inserting coins.

Aside from the ability to have up to four players at once, the game is also noted for the narrator's voice, which was produced by a Texas Instruments TMS5220C speech chip.[5][6] The TMS5220C speech was encoded by Earl Vickers.[5] The narrator (voiced by Ernie Fosselius)[5] frequently makes statements repeating the game's rules, including: "Shots do not hurt other players – yet", "Remember, don't shoot food!", "Elf – shot the food!", and "Warrior needs food – badly!" Occasionally, the narrator will comment on the battle by saying, "I've not seen such bravery!" or "Let's see you get out of here!" When a player's "life force" points fell below 200, the narrator states, "Your life force is running out", "Elf needs food", or "Valkyrie ... is about to die!".

To accommodate up to four players, the control panel is wider than other standard uprights. Each player has a joystick and two buttons, one for "Fire" (ranged attack) and one for "Magic". The Magic button also starts the game. After Gauntlet's release, other games started using this design, so it was a popular conversion target for newer games after it had its run.

It is possible to play the original version of the game with a hypothetically unlimited amount of time on one credit, especially with the Warrior and Wizard. A ROM update was released, reducing the "extra shot power" and "extra shot speed" powerup bonus for Warrior and Wizard, and adding a new points-based difficulty counter to the game. The difficulty counter makes the game more difficult, in 16,384-point steps, which removes more designated food from the levels, and made the monsters respawn faster. However, this means that on the default game difficulty of 4, it is almost impossible to pass levels 1–7 without dying, and level 4 was designed so that some of the food drops would block the monsters from swarming the player. This is because the game removed some of the "default" food for playing solo; on difficulty level 0, at least one food placement was removed from every single level (at low scores), and on difficulty 4, two or three food drops were removed. This greatly increases the game's difficulty, unless the machine is set to difficulty 0. Instead, the game gives bonus food for three or four players playing together. (Three players gave all of the default food, while four gave extra food in random locations.)[citation needed]

This was later refined for Gauntlet 2, so that Valkyrie and Elf would not receive extra food removal penalties, and only Warrior and Wizard would receive the extra penalties. Valkyrie and Elf would receive all of the default food that the current difficulty setting plus points difficulty scaling would allow, although Valkyrie would receive the fewest food penalties at higher (non-point based) difficulty levels. Elf would get some food removed at difficulty levels 6 and 7. The game still gave extra food for three or four players playing together.

Originally called Dungeons,[5] the game was conceived by Atari game designer Ed Logg. He claimed inspiration from his son's interest in the paper-based game Dungeons & Dragons and from his own interest in 1983's Atari 800 home computer game Dandy. The game's development spanned from 1983 to 1985, with a team being led by designers Ed Logg and Roger Zeigler. The working title became legally unavailable in April 1985,[5] so it was renamed Gauntlet in May. Based upon some of the most elaborate hardware design in Atari's history to date, it is the company's first coin-operated game that features a voice synthesizer chip.[7]

Many of its levels were entries in a competition throughout Europe in which only ten winners were awarded prizes, "A Gauntlet T-Shirt and a copy of the program for their computers."[9] The contest was announced in the instructions of many of the ported games: "In early 1987, U.S. Gold will release an expansion cassette for Gauntlet containing hundreds of new levels and treasure rooms. You can have the chance to have your own maze included on this tape!"[10] The levels are presented randomly and its artwork is the side panel artwork of the arcade cabinet with only the main characters shown. The enemies were removed from the image and replaced with a pink background.

Many reviewers noted that the levels were much harder than those in the original game, although the consensus was that it was not quite as good as the first game or the (then) newly released arcade sequel.[11][12][13][14]

The game was highly profitable upon its October 1985 launch, reportedly earning one San Mateo, California, arcade operator US$15,000 in sixteen weeks and another Canadian operator $4,500 in nine days.[7] Atari ultimately sold a total of 7,848 Gauntletvideo game arcade cabinets.[3] At the 1986 Golden Joystick Awards in London, Gauntlet won Game of the Year, and was runner-up in the category of Arcade-Style Game of the Year.[32]

The Macintosh version of the game was reviewed in 1989 in Dragon No. 150 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.[18]Computer and Video Games praised the accuracy of the Amstrad version, and said that it had "great graphics, good sounds, and perfect playability." Crash praised the smooth and fast scrolling, and the longevity, with Avenger being listed as the only alternative. In their Master System review, ACE said that people of all ages could quickly master the controls and tasks. The Spectrum version was the biggest selling game of 1986,[12] and was voted number 38 in the Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time.[34]

Of the Mega Drive release in 1993, MegaTech said that "the action is flawless" and had stood the test of time well. They continued that it was "a brilliant game, and one that warrants immediate attention". Mega praised the longevity of the game, saying it was "huge fun and a must-buy". They placed the game at No. 19 in their list of the best Mega Drive games of all time.[35]

More than a decade after release, the Official UK PlayStation Magazine noted that they "spent many a night hunched over a fag-stained Gauntlet machine", but said that the limitations had become apparent in the late 1990s.[36]

Controversy arose after the release of the game in the arcade and its subsequent port to the Nintendo Entertainment System. Ed Logg, the co-creator of Asteroids and Centipede, is credited for Original Game Design of Gauntlet in the arcade version, as well as the 1987 NES release version. After its release, John Palevich threatened a lawsuit, asserting that the original concept for the game was from Dandy (later Dandy Dungeon), a game for the Atari 800 computer written by Palevich in 1983. The conflict was settled without any suit being filed, with Atari Games doing business as Tengen allegedly awarding Palevich a Gauntlet game machine.[37] Logg is taken off this credit in versions subsequent to the 1987 NES release. While he is credited as "special thanks" through 1986, his name is entirely removed from credits on later releases.[38] Logg currently claims no involvement in the NES release.[39] The game Dandy which was the basis for the threatened lawsuit was later reworked by Atari and re-published for the Atari 2600, Atari 7800 and Atari XE as Dark Chambers in 1988,[40] subsequent to the release of Gauntlet II in 1987.

The seventh track from Five Iron Frenzy's album The End is Near is entitled "The Wizard Needs Food Badly," and contains audio snippets from Gauntlet. One of the B-sides on We Are ScientistsChick Lit EP contains a song called "Gauntlet" in reference to the game. Their album Brain Thrust Mastery contains many video game titles for songs such as "Lethal Enforcer," "Altered Beast" and "Ghouls" (from Ghouls 'n Ghosts).[42] Belgian band à;GRUMH... released a song called "Wizard Needs Food" on their 1988 album Bloody Side, with similarly Gauntlet-themed lyrics.[43] Blizzard's World of Warcraft has a quest called "Blue Dwarf Needs Food Badly" in the Kun-Lai Summit zone of Pandaria. The world record holder for Gauntlet is Russ Cool of Hanover, Pennsylvania with a score of 5.1 million points, set December 6, 2013.[44]